


The boy who cried wolf

by ShapeShiftersandFire



Series: The Bellows Are Gone [2]
Category: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Series - Alvin Schwartz
Genre: Animal Attack, Blood, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23507305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShapeShiftersandFire/pseuds/ShapeShiftersandFire
Summary: The wolves in Mill Valley had gotten out of hand.Or, Harold is the next to have his name in the book.
Series: The Bellows Are Gone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596235
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	The boy who cried wolf

**Author's Note:**

> _Die if I must, let my bones turn to dust, I’m the lord of the lake and I don’t want to leave it._
> 
> -Lord Huron, Ghost on the Shore

The talk started on Sunday, when Delanie was noticeably absent from church. The Bellows somehow manage to tune out the majority of it, instead losing themselves to prayer, praying Delanie might reappear or that they’ll find her somewhere in the woods. But at the end of the service there was no escaping it, the questions came fast and heavy. Harold keeps his head down, avoids eye contact, sticks close to his father who is quickly becoming hounded by men curious as to where his lovely wife is. Each time he hears Delanie’s name he has to force away tears. He can’t cry here, now, in front of these people. There’ll be time for that later when they’ve reached home.

He dares look up once, just to see Ephraim’s face; his usually stone-faced brother is tense and misty-eyed, refusing to address anyone who speaks to him directly beyond a head shake and a wave of his hand, he’s not answering questions.

Harold himself gets one or two questions, the first from old Mr. Robinson, who runs the tavern on the main drag— _Mother rarely drank but she did love the red wine_ ; the second from Mrs. Birchwell, a friend of Delanie’s. He can’t bear to answer either of them, to tell them Delanie is gone, but how does one explain what happened at the house that night? How does he tell them some creature from the depths of hell crawled out just to grab his mother by the hair and drag her back into that pit with it?

He doesn’t.

He does what Ephraim does: he shakes his head and tells them both, “Not now,” and hopes it doesn’t come out as harsh as he thinks it does. Mr. Robinson and Mrs. Birchwell nod respectfully and leave Harold alone, stepping back to watch the remaining four of the Bellows family climb down the stairs of the church and into the waiting carriage.

None of them say a word until the carriage has returned them to the house and they’ve shut the doors behind them.

“And what do you plan on telling them?” Gertrude asks.

“What’s there to tell?” Deodat says, easing Gertrude onto the couch. Harold winces as the tone in his father’s voice, rough and worn with grief.

“What’s there to tell?” Gertrude echoes, and scoffs. “Your wife vanishes into the night, and not quietly at that, and all you have to say it ‘What’s there to tell?’ I expected better from you, Deodat.”

“Have some sympathy, Grandmother,” Ephraim scolds. “Father has just lost the only woman he’s ever loved, and in such a brutal manner. That you could so easily say such a thing appalls me. Did you not feel fondly of Delanie?”

“Of course I felt fondly of Delanie,” Gertrude snaps. “She was the daughter I never had.”

Harold winces again, this time at his grandmother’s decisive use of “was” as opposed to “is.” Has Gertrude already moved on from Delanie? It’s barely been a week. How could she have gone through the grieving process so quickly?

(Sarah is gone, too, but they’ve all moved on from her already, not that there was much to move on from.)

(Not to mention they know for a fact Sarah is gone. Delanie’s fate is still uncertain. Despite the drag trail and blood and fabric scraps they found, they still don’t know for sure that Delanie is dead. Until they find a body, Harold isn’t willing to jump to any conclusions.)

“Then perhaps you should speak better of her,” Ephraim suggests.

Gertrude doesn’t offer a reply. She glowers at him, and Ephraim glowers back, unmoved. Eventually, Gertrude relents with nothing more than a huff.

Harold shifts uneasily from foot to foot. The tension in this room is too thick, too heavy. His father’s grief only adds to the weight; the man looks so tired and defeated no amount of sleep is going to help him. He needs to get out of the room, just for a few moments, just to get his head in order, just to stop his eyes from blurring, and they’re blurring, but he can’t let them know that. So Harold excuses himself to go put the tea on, carefully holding himself together, listening to be sure Ephraim hasn’t followed him into the kitchen.

He gets the tea on the stove, just as he planned, but once the kettle is going he slips out the back door and leans on the back porch railing. The woods spread out before him, the very same woods where his mother was dragged off. He searches the tree line for any sign of the creature that took Delanie or Delanie herself, just as he’s done every day following. But, as usual, nothing appears, not that Harold could see it around the increased blurring in his eyes. He blinks it away, feeling warm tears run down his face. He brushes them away as soon as they appear, but they keep coming and nothing he does can stop them.

_I can’t do this. I can’t be crying—_

“Harold?”

Harold jumps, hurrying to wipe his eyes and hide his tears before he turns around to meet Ephraim. “Ephraim. Is something wrong?”

Ephraim says nothing at first, in that cold, unnerving way of his that Harold thinks was always meant for the hospital but Ephraim never shook off, and comes to stand beside Harold at the railing. “The kettle was whistling,” he says flatly.

“Oh.” Harold looks out over the woods again. The shadows are growing long. But there’s no hint of the eyes Delanie saw at the window that night. “I was distracted,” he admits. “Looking for Mother again.” He coughs, fighting to hold back the tears, but with each passing second that becomes more and more impossible.

“I worry we’ll never find her,” Ephraim admits. His voice cracks uncharacteristically.

“I keep hoping she’ll come home on her own,” Harold says, as Ephraim rests a hand on his shoulder, and that’s when he loses control. Once the tears start coming, he can’t stop them; he’d been holding them back for too long.

This is the part where Ephraim would scold him, tell him to stop crying, he’s a Bellows, the next in line for the mill, he shouldn’t be crying. But instead Ephraim keeps his hand on Harold’s shoulder and lets him cry.

The talk becomes rumors, and the rumors swirl around the town. Everything ranging from Delanie leaving on account of family issues to her having divorced Deodat following Sarah’s death. After all, everyone knew how fond of the little girl Deodat was. (And was he out of his mind? Didn’t he realize she was a menace? Sending her to Pennhurst was the best thing he could have done. He saved lives, doesn’t he know?) Deodat has yet to clear the air about the reason for Delanie’s disappearance, though Harold can hardly fathom how he plans on doing that. He’s considered putting an end to the rumors himself, but every excuse he thinks he has falls flat before he can even try to say it out loud.

And he _wants to_ , he desperately wants to. The things the townspeople say about his mother become more and more vicious with each passing day—each day more without Delanie—and it pains him to listen to them disparage his mother’s memory. They’re ridiculing a dead woman and they don’t even know it.

( _Not_ dead _, never_ dead. _She’s not_ dead _until we find a body._ )

(Part of him doubts they ever will.)

Harold forces himself to block them all out. No one says anything while at the mill, they all know better than to pour salt into that wound, but when he’s out on the streets he can feel the eyes burning into his back and hear the whispers running through the streets. He sees the sneers thrown his way from the women who found themselves at odds with his mother, for whatever reason. And he sees the looks of pity cast his way from the men who are close to his father, who found his mother a pleasant enough woman to be in the company of.

But the worst of the rumors comes when he hears, “I heard Delanie Bellows had an affair.” Harold stops immediately and turns on the woman, a young thing who clearly had never met his mother, didn’t know the faintest thing about his mother, never knew that despite all her other faults she was as devoted to Deodat as could be. “My mother was no adulteress and you have no proof that says otherwise!”

“Don’t I?” the woman says, waving her fan. The three other woman around her, of similar age and similar distance from Delanie, smirk at him. “And have you proof that she was faithful?”

“I know my mother,” Harold spits. “She would never betray my father.”

“Then where is she?”

The question knocks the wind from Harold. How’s he to answer? _Gone,_ he wants to say. _Dragged off by some wretched creature from hell._ But he doesn’t. Instead he bites his tongue, utters, “That’s not your business,” and walks away. He knows it doesn’t stop them from whispering, it won’t; he can hear them snickering and muttering and dragging Delanie’s name through the dirt.

_They wouldn’t be laughing if they’d heard her screaming._

He relays the conversation to his family later that night over dinner, simmering so much from the encounter that his anger keeps him from eating. He’s too angry, too sick, over Delanie’s disappearance and the rumors surrounding her that he can’t bring himself to force anything down his throat. His mother deserves better.

(And then comes the tiniest of voices: _Hadn’t Sarah also deserved better? Hadn’t you done the same to her?_ )

(He pretends not to hear it.)

Deodat sets his knife and fork down and shakes his head. “I’ll set the record straight tomorrow,” he says. His voice cracks on the last word, his face is wrought with distress and regret. Harold is sure he’d had the same voice echoing in his ear, wondering why he hadn’t done the same for Sarah.

That, and this business with the rumors has gone on far too long. A week is too long for this matter to not have been settled. Deodat should have settled it days ago.

Ephraim sighs quietly, either in frustration or disappointment or irritation or some combination of all three, as he often does—Harold has heard him use that same tone with Sarah on multiple occasions, and Harold always relished the way Sarah recoiled from it. She knew what that sigh meant, just as much as Harold did. This time, his feelings of disdain are directed toward the people who assume, incorrectly, that Delanie left on the account of an affair.

“As soon as possible, I would hope, Father,” he says, arching an eyebrow. “I would hate for Mother’s name to be soiled beyond repair.” He takes a sip of wine, eyes narrowed.

“As would I,” Deodat says, in a heavy tone that pushes back against anything Ephraim may insinuate. “Which is why I fully plan on speaking with the Mill Valley Gazette first thing tomorrow morning. And anyone else who feels inclined to ask.” He doesn’t say _about Delanie._ He never says Delanie’s name anymore, it’s either _your mother, your daughter-in-law, my wife,_ or _her_ , depending on the nature of the subject and who he speaks with. Harold noticed the change happening within days following the incident. His heart aches, for his disappeared mother as much as his father. What Deodat wouldn’t give to have Delanie back.

“Do you want me to come with you, Father?” Harold asks. The thought of leaving his father alone to face the torrent of rumors and accusations being lobbed at his disappeared mother unsettles him. Even Ephraim looks unsettled at the prospect, his jaw tight and his shoulders square.

Deodat waves him off. “No, no, you take care of the mill. I’ll talk to the paper.” And Ephraim, as per usual, will continue his work at the hospital.

Harold has never said it, but sometimes he wonders what Ephraim does there now that he doesn’t have Sarah to torment. He’s always wondered what Ephraim did before Sarah, and he wonders more now. How do you move on from what was essentially an ongoing project?

But, as always, his brother is closed off to him. Ephraim has never been easy to read, if he can be read at all.

“If they have need of further input,” Ephraim says, taking another sip, “have the paper call my office. During office hours, preferably.” And it’s not said without that _it will be done this way, no exceptions_ cock of his eyebrow.

“Of course,” Deodat says. A bit of fire comes back to him as he adds, “And if it puts you at ease, Ephraim, I plan on telling them Delanie has returned to Rhode Island on account of a family emergency.”

Ephraim nods. “That will suffice.”

So, the next day, while Ephraim is at work and Harold runs the mill while his father is out, Deodat heads down to the Mill Valley Gazette to set the record straight before the paper can come out with any kind of damning report against Delanie. And none too soon; when he speaks to the head editor, it’s moments before the story regarding his wife’s disappearance is finalized. The kind of bone-deep exhaustion Deodat has felt since the night Delanie vanished feels heavier. Deeper. He sighs.

“Destroy it, please,” he whispers. “I’d rather my wife’s name not be damaged further.”

“Of course, Mr. Bellows,” the editor agrees, and it’s not without the same expression of sorrowful pity that’s come to grace the faces of so many around town. Deodat has grown used to it. He’s never even really noticed it, as much as he’s seen it. Perhaps he assumed they’d all felt the same about Delanie. They’d loved her well, this town, in spite of the woman she was at home.

(Some times Deodat didn’t know that woman. She was full of hatred and rage and she took it out on their daughter. He missed the woman who would smile at him in the dead of night and tell him how different the stars were in Pennsylvania; she couldn’t see Orion’s Belt as well here as she could in Rhode Island.)

“Thank you,” Deodat says in a low, hoarse voice. He replaces his hat on his head without so much as a second glance at the editor and leaves. He gets the occasional hat tip and brief greeting, “Mr. Bellows,” but no one comments on Delanie. Not to him.

For the next month, nothing else happens. The Bellows house is quiet, the town less so. In spite of Deodat’s going to the paper, rumors have continued to swirl as to the nature of Delanie’s disappearance. Deodat finally goes on record saying just what he had to the paper: Delanie had returned home to Rhode Island on account of a family emergency. Some believe Deodat; some don’t, and continue to smear Delanie’s name; some don’t, but say nothing. Those who don’t believe and say nothing are the ones Harold knows are right—why else would a man look so distraught over his wife leaving if it were merely for a family emergency? Worried, perhaps, but Deodat teeters on the brink of a full depressive episode, of falling into a hole so deep neither Ephraim nor Harold would be able to drag him out of it.

(And those who didn’t believe Deodat are right, but not for the reasons they think. Delanie would _never_ go back to Rhode Island, not for anything.)

That’s the reason they let him keep working at the mill. It keeps his mind busy, keeps it off Delanie’s untimely demi— _disappearance._ In spite of a month having passed and no new evidence of Delanie surfacing, no one is willing to say she’s dead. If there’s no body, they have no proof she’s dead. That’s what Harold keeps telling himself. That’s what they all keep telling themselves. Even Gertrude, Harold has noticed, who had initially scoffed when they’d told her Delanie had been dragged away but had paled and said nothing more on the matter when Ephraim had put the bloodied cloth in her hand, let her feel the broken window, the deep claw marks on his shoulder that have since healed and scarred over. The most she’s said are the few gruff remarks she made after church that day.

 _But everyone has their methods of coping,_ Harold supposes, even if he doesn’t like it. Delanie was his mother, Gertrude’s daughter-in-law, and he knows they were close. Delanie had called her _Mother_.

As for Harold, he’s not sure what to do with himself. He’s lost, drifting through the following days, losing himself in the mill work and trying not to think about what’s happening at home. In the span of three months he’s lost his sister and his mother. And some days he feels like he’s going to be next.

(He never says this to Ephraim.)

He’s started having nightmares, filled with fear and flashes of white and teeth. He wakes feeling like he’s been running, but he never remembers what from. He’s started feeling like he’s being watched, like something’s following him, but always just out of the corner of his eye, and it disappears when he tries to find it. He doesn’t tell Ephraim that, either, because his brother is on the brink of becoming unwound at the seems. Harold sees it, Ephraim’s barely holding it together. His brother has started throwing himself into his work more and more, it’s subtle, but Harold sees it. A small stack of files adorns Ephraim’s usually bare and neat desk. A new one or two shows up every few days. Ephraim isn’t just throwing himself into work, he’s bringing it _home_ with him.

“It’s the one thing you said you’d never do,” Harold says one night, pointing at the stack.

Ephraim sighs. His shoulders sag, dark rings line his eyes. There’s a shine to them, one that he blinks away, and Harold knows exactly what it is. He’s not sure if it should bother him or relieve him that his brother is becoming easier to read. “I know,” Ephraim answers, but it’s without the usual firm dismissiveness he normally has. His voice wavers. He looks away from Harold as he sits down at the edge of the bed; that shine is back, and he can’t hide it this time.

Harold feels his throat tighten painfully, tears sting his eyes. He swallows.

“I have to do something,” Ephraim whispers, perhaps to himself. And Harold knows it, he’s trying not to think about Delanie, trying not to think about the fact that his mother is gone, that they haven’t found her, that they probably never will— and that’s the ugly truth they’ve all been denying for weeks now— that no matter what they do Delanie will never come home. Ephraim looks up. “I miss her, Harold.”

 _I miss her, too,_ Harold wants to say, but all his words are trapped behind the tears he desperately tries to hold back, even as Ephraim tries and fails to blink his own away. All he can do is nod in solidarity. And then he finds himself sitting beside Ephraim as his brother breaks down, collapses into his shoulder, and sobs. Harold grips him tightly; there’s nothing he can say to ease Ephraim’s grief, nothing he can say to ease his hurt, nothing he can say at all, not when his own tears are starting to come. And he can’t help it, he’s never heard Ephraim cry like this, not so uncontrollably, not so hard that he shakes. Not so much that he’s clinging to Harold for dear life, like he never wants to let him go (and maybe he doesn’t).

(Some part of Harold thinks that this isn’t the end, that Delanie’s disappearance was only the beginning. But he has nothing to prove it.)

He holds Ephraim tighter. And finally tucks his head in against his brother’s shoulder, unable to hold his tears in any longer. _Don’t leave me, Ram. Never leave me. Never leave._

Harold wakes to the gray light of a foggy morning. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, or why he’s in Ephraim’s room. The stack of folders remains untouched on the desk. And Ephraim—Ephraim is sound asleep in Harold’s arms, head against Harold’s shoulder. That’s when Harold remembers. Their conversation from the night before, Ephraim breaking down in tears, Harold holding him while he cried. They must have fallen asleep some time during then, but Harold doesn’t remember when. He sighs and holds Ephraim just a little closer. This is the first time they’ve spent a night like this since they were children.

He remembers, it was in the later months of Delanie’s pregnancy with Sarah, when Delanie had finally agreed to go on bed rest until Sarah was finally born. Harold and Ephraim had largely been left to their own devices, with Deodat encouraging them to keep their usual routine, but Delanie’s presence meant that the boys had a little more freedom. They’d spent more than one night sitting up late in Ephraim’s room, talking about everything and nothing, joking quietly and listening for the tell-tale tap of Gertrude’s cane on the floor; they weren’t eager to upset her. Deodat was always the one to find them asleep in Ephraim’s bed in the morning; there was always a shine in his eyes that told him he’d never tell Delanie.

 _I understand you two having been spending more time together,_ Delanie had told them once, in the days following Sarah’s birth. They’d looked at each other, wondering how much she knew, but she never gave them an answer, and instead they nodded. _Good,_ she’d said. _Keep doing that. And perhaps when your sister is older you can include her in some of your significantly less rowdy games._

That hadn’t exactly come to fruition.

Harold wonders, as he hugs Ephraim, what Delanie would say about the two of them now. Maybe she’d scold them, they were both grown men after all, or maybe she’d be pleased to see them getting along like this, however unfortunate the circumstance. They’d gone so long without seeing eye to eye, after all.

The clock on the wall chimes seven. Harold sighs. He’s due at the mill seven-thirty. As much as it pains him to have to leave Ephraim, duty calls. Ephraim hasn’t stirred each time Harold has hugged him tighter, but it’s when he reluctantly pushes him away and begins to climb out of bed that Ephraim stirs.

“Harold?”

“I have to be at the mill.”

Ephraim sighs, rubs the sleep and tears from his eyes, and slowly stands up. He pulls Harold into a tight embrace. “Come home tonight, Harold.”

“I will,” Harold promises. “I will.”

The day is a blur, Harold doesn’t remember most of it. Meetings, discussions about new machine parts, finances, payroll, it all merges together into one incoherent memory. His head aches by the time the day is done, and he’s overly eager to clock out and go home. _He_ _’d promised Ephraim he’d come home._

He calls ahead before he leaves. “I should be home within the half hour.”

On the other end of the phone, Ephraim, already home from work, sighs with relief. “Good. I’ll see you in the half hour. Safe travels, Harold.”

Harold leans back in his office chair after hanging up and lets out a sigh. He’s reached the end of one long day, but the long months are never going to end. There’s always going to be two less Bellows when he gets home.

He’s still not used to it.

(And sometimes, he wishes he didn’t _have_ to go home. Wishes he didn’t have to have the reality of it.)

Still, he pushes himself out of his chair, gathers his things, and leaves the mill for the night, making sure to lock the office door and the main doors of the building behind him. The oncoming night isn’t quite cold but it isn’t quite warm. It’s somewhere in the middle, somewhere on the brink of spring. No snow has fallen since late December, by some miracle, but the ground is still on the frozen side. Harold doesn’t get the chance to relish the slow arrival of spring as much as he usually would. This oncoming spring, his mother is gone, his sister is gone, and— his family is in total disarray. Even with the prospect of warmer weather, there’s not a whole lot Harold finds himself looking forward to.

 _I’ll have time to spend with Ephraim,_ he thinks. In between running the mill and taking care of Deodat, he resolves to look after Ephraim. His brother goes to bed at nine-thirty every night. If Harold catches him reading files past that time, he’s going to take them from Ephraim and keep them in his own room until morning. _I know he’s coping, but I can’t let him run himself into the ground._

A day or two off might be nice, but Ephraim is as committed to his work as he is to his family. Convincing him to take any amount of time off during his normal schedule would take a miracle.

For now, Harold resolves to get home and have dinner with his family before they go their separate ways for the evening. If he can at least start to convince Ephraim to step back, even a little, that would be something. But only so much progress can be made over vegetable soup and baked rabbit.

Then comes a rustle of bushes in the woods. And that’s when Harold knows. Something is _following him._ There’s no breeze tonight, or not one strong enough to make that sound. His heart begins to race. Somewhere in the growing darkness around him, something lurks, something fiendish. Is it the same monster that attacked Delanie and Ephraim? Or is it the one from his nightmares, the one that passes him in a flash of white, the one with sharp teeth?

He sees it out of the corner of his eye, something white and moving swiftly, something that doesn’t stay in one place when he tries to look at it. Nothing about it is similar to the monster that took Delanie. That monster was taller and slimmer. And much more up front. This, whatever this is, stalks. It follows Harold down the road to the carriage, hanging back about five paces. He shivers and quickens his pace toward the carriage waiting to take him home. The trip isn’t long, but with fear in his heart and something stalking him in the shadows, it feels like miles.

Harold pulls his coat tighter around him, tries to ignore the shuffling bushes and snapping twigs and… _snarling?_ His heart pounds in his ears. His hands shake.

_I promised Ephraim I’d come home._

_I have to get to the carriage. I have to get home._

He picks up his pace, nearly running now. His heart pounds so fiercely he almost can’t hear the harsh breathing that lurks behind him.

Or that it gets closer.

Harold’s instincts have switched from logical to fear-driven. It’s fight or flight, and by all means, he’s choosing flight. Whatever that _thing_ is that’s in the bushes, it’s _following him_ , it’s hunting him down. He starts running. He has to get away from it, has to reach the carriage— _He’d promised Ephraim he’d be home._

 _I think not._ The voice is low and ragged, harsh and sour with rage. And female.

“S-Sarah?”

_You wanted a monster, Harold? Here’s your monster._

The bushes rustle again. And when he looks back, standing in front of him is the largest white wolf he’s ever seen. It’s twice the size of Gertrude’s Doberman, with thick, shaggy fur and misaligned yellow eyes. One ear has a massive notch in it, the other is gone. Its back is slightly hunched, with a line of standing fur running the length of its spine. Drool drips from its teeth. It snarls at him, not hungry, but murderous. In its eyes is every ounce of rage Sarah could possibly possess.

It takes a step forward. Harold takes a step back.

He holds his hands out, trying to stave off what he knows is going to be the inevitable.

_He’s alone, he can’t call for help—_

“Wait a minute, Sarah,” he pleads. “Wait a minute, wait—”

The wolf lunges with a feral snarl, a sound something akin to a roar, and Harold takes off running.

He doesn’t look behind him, he doesn’t have to, he can hear the wolf’s heavy paw steps behind him, its gurgly breathing, its snarling—

He can picture the foam dripping from its mouth—

The carriage sits at the end of the drive. He can make it, he can make it, he knows he can—

The watery breathing and heavy foam-ladden snarling gets closer and closer and then there’s teeth in his leg—

Harold cries out and falls to the ground, his chin smacks the pavement. Black lines the edges of his vision. The sound goes fuzzy. He can’t hear anything for a moment, not the crickets, not the wind, not the heaving breath of the wolf. But he can feel everything, he feels himself being dragged backwards, he feels long teeth sunk deep into his leg. He shrieks as the teeth come out; a thin howl pierces his faded hearing.

He rolls over as the wolf has its head lifted toward the night sky— _I wonder if Ephraim can hear it—_ he freezes— _Ephraim. I’d promised Ephraim—_

In the moment the wolf has its focus off him, Harold scrambles to his feet, his head spinning, and tries to hobble away. Each step sends hot pain up his leg, blood soaking into his pants, his sock, down to his shoe— _I have to get away, I have to get home._

A sound of pure fury tears through the night. The wolf lets out a shriek that sounds far too human for Harold’s liking. His heart races faster, blood roars in his ears. The wolf comes after him again, and this time he’s running, his injured leg be damned, he has to _get away—_

And it’s on him again. This time, it isn’t so kind. It rips into his leg again with sharp, unforgiving teeth, drags him to the ground, shakes him by the ankle—

And all the while Harold is kicking at the wolf, screaming—for Ephraim, for Deodat, for the carriage driver— _for Sarah, for Delanie—_ but no one hears and each sound only seems to make the wolf more enraged. This time it bites into his shoulder. He screams, taking a handful of matted white fur.

“ _Mother! Mother! Ephraim!_ _”_

 _No one’s coming, Harold._ The wolf’s lip curls around its teeth in a kind of morbid grin.

Every ounce of fear rushing through Harold’s veins comes pouring out through his eyes. Between the pain fraying the edges of his vision with black and the tears, he can barely make out the great hulking shape of the wolf on top of him, where it ends and the night starts. “ _Mother, Mother_ _…”_

_I want Mother, I want Mother, I want Mother—_

_She’d always felt so safe to him. Her heartbeat was always so strong—_

Harold blinks away tears long enough to see the gleam in the wolf’s eye. A new kind of fear rushes through him. He shakes his head. “No, no…Please, no…”

_It’s too late for that, Harold._

Then the wolf lets go, and Harold sees its teeth.

More than a half hour has passed and still Harold hasn’t come home. Ephraim begins to worry.

He tries calling the mill, once, twice, three times, but gets no answer. The phone rings and rings and rings until finally he becomes so irritated he hangs up.

Ephraim restlessly paces the living room, sickness knotting in his stomach, fear beginning to take a hold on his heart. _No,_ he tells himself, _no. The carriage driver is late, that’s all. They’ve hit a road block. The carriage needs repairs. They’re waiting for another. That’s all. Harold is fine. He’ll be home shortly._ He looks up at the clock, now nearly an hour past the time when Harold said he would be home. _He will be. He promised me._

The sick feeling sits heavy in Ephraim’s gut. No matter how he tries to ignore it, he can’t. Even if he won’t acknowledge it consciously, and he won’t, he knows, deep down, something is _wrong._ Very wrong.

 _He’s not gone,_ Ephraim tells himself, even as a small voice at the back of his mind says otherwise. _He’s simply late getting home. He’s fine. He’s alive. He’s late getting home._

_He’s dead. He’s dead. Something’s gotten him. He’s dead._

_He’s_ fine. _He’s only a little late—_

It’s now been an hour and fifteen minutes. Something is undeniably wrong.

Ephraim’s heart pounds, his legs feel like they’re going to give out underneath him at any given moment, walking to Deodat’s study is harder than he thought, he can’t get there fast enough. He doesn’t bother to knock— “Father, Harold hasn’t come home yet. I want to ride out to the mill and check on him.”

For the first time in over a month, Deodat seems to wake from his sorrowful stupor and stands up from his desk with a fire in his eyes. “I’ll join you.”

They grab their coats, saddle the horses, and ride out to the mill as fast as their horses will allow. They ride in silence. With every stride closer to the mill Ephraim feels a hint of relief overwhelming by a heavy sense of dread. _Something is wrong._ They barely make it to the drive leading to the mill when their horses spook, digging their heels into the ground and refusing to go any further. Ephraim tries to spur his forward, but the mare squeals and bucks, nearly throwing him into the dirt. He backs her away from the drive. “We’ll have to go on foot.” He and Deodat dismount their horses, tie them to the nearest tree, and press on.

The area around the drive is eerily silent. Not a note from the crickets, not a song from the frogs. It’s as though the area as been vacated by all sizes of wildlife.

Every step that takes them closer to the mill comes with a weighty feeling of dread, a feeling that they shouldn’t _be there_ , that something so wrong and foul has taken place here that the area isn’t safe for any living creature. Ephraim looks both ways for anything in the bushes.

 _Even the forest the night Mother disappeared had more life than this._ Not even an owl screeches.

Then Deodat stops. “Ephraim…” His voice sounds so broken, fractured, so faint Ephraim almost doesn’t hear him. He has to look at Deodat to be sure his father even uttered a word. When he does, he sees the fear in Deodat’s eyes, the dull glaze; he can practically see Deodat fighting the urge to drop to his knees. Deodat points to something, Ephraim follows his finger, and that’s when things get blurry.

Ephraim remembers seeing a puddle of blood and dark streaks across the pavement. He remembers the dark paw prints disappearing into the night. He doesn’t remember screaming.

**Author's Note:**

> story: the white wolf
> 
> ephraim: do you ever want to talk about your emotions, father?  
> deodat: no  
> harold: i do  
> ephraim: i know, harold  
> harold: i’m sad  
> ephraim: i know, harold


End file.
